News New GPU Power Connector Eliminates Cables, Delivers More Than 600W

[Amdlova]

Rainbow rainbow... now I have a pc with rgb and love it. Put one static color and it's done.

These new connector sound stupid to me. Expensive boards again and again. Higher chance to damage all components when a single item fail....
Thanks I love the cables... even the one with outside the specs making my graphics screaming...

 

[s997863]

Why don't 75+ watt GPUs simply come with an external power adapter that plugs into your wall, like a laptop power-brick? This should help the GPU makers expand their market to customers who want to upgrade old Optiplex or other branded mini tower PCs with a single-fan GPU that still needs over 75W.

 

[tenow]

self punishment. almost like bonzai for enthusiast pcs. lets fit an rtx4090 and 16core cpu into a shoebox so we can get bad thermals and it costs twice as much. its the equivalent of shrinking down 4u 8 gpu servers to 1u so you can pay more for losing future upgrades all so it can be small. if you want a small desktop just get a mac mini. i have an extended atx tower.and i wish corsair made 6 ft tall atx cases.

Who said something about shoebox? What about Fractal Ridge? NZXT H1?

 

[PEnns]

The concept appeals to me, enough with those nasty wires all over the innards of computers.

But it needs to be refined and be applicable to all / most used motherboard forms.

 

[tennis2]

• mITX how?
• Assuming this can be implemented on GPUs that also contain "traditional" PCIe power connectors for backward compatibility?
• SIGNIFICANT mobo cost increase expected. And you still need to connect the additional power cables from the PSU, just into the mobo now.
• Would this work best if the industry shifts to a new ATX PSU standard?

Don't get me wrong, I like the concept. There's just soooo many related things that need to evolve for this to become a worthwhile solution to something other than "hey! we moved a couple cables to where you can't see them"

 

[-Fran-]

I made the mistake of buying a bunch of RGB components in my last several builds. The thing that really annoys me is Trident's software used to control the lighting. To turn off the RGB on the RAM sticks you have to have the Trident software running continuously. I noticed it was using 2-3% of my CPU, (using task manager). I uninstalled it and installed the latest version. It takes 0.8-1.5%. Total waste of Power/Resources. It is small but all the Craplets add up.
It would be nice just to plug in a Video Card without the new connectors going to it but as others have pointed out, you will have to connect several more power connectors to your MB. One of the builds I am working on now uses a 24pin, two 8 pin and a 4pin power connectors. Adding several more to the MB might get a bit cramped.

That sucks. You can always fuse-off the RGB or, if they are wired separately to the RAM, just disconnect the RGB. Or you now know and won't get RAM with RGB next time? At least, not the same brand.

The cost of the LED hardware and software support(if present) is still included in the product, whether one likes it or not.
The cost is probably insignificant, but everyone isn't going to see it that way.
Gonna be one of those subjects folks will never see eye to eye over.

That is true, but for Companies that is a sunken cost, so they rather have it in all their products when they can. I'm sure there's a point of no return when it comes to RGB in products, haha. There's so many ways to wire a PCB and I think the added cost of the RGB is minimal all things considered. The software on the other side could be way more costly. Or at least I'd imagine it is. Plus it's an ongoing cost they pass onto the people.

Just to be clear, I do not like RGB either, but I don't mind that it exists as long as I can just turn it off (or disconnect it) in an easy non-invasive way.
--

I'll stop here on the RGB topic

Regards.

 

[InvalidError]

Furthermore, I really don’t think transfer such high power on mb is a good idea..

It would be fine if it happened in a coordinated and coherent manner. Having it split between three if not more different connectors on the other hand is silly.

High current on motherboards is nothing new: copper layers in motherboards have had to deal with 100+A of Vcore in the cramped CPU area for about 20 years already. 100A spread along the board edge and a dozen 12V pins should be no big deal. Though I'd rather have an EC5-style connector with only one pair of wires to the PSU, no worries about current balance across 12+ much smaller wires and pins.

 

[vehekos]

It will take a lot of space on the motherboard, so probably we will get only 1 or 2 powered PCIE slots, and we will be charged a fortune for it, like we already get charged for every minor piece added to the mother.

 

[InvalidError]

It will take a lot of space on the motherboard, so probably we will get only 1 or 2 powered PCIE slots, and we will be charged a fortune for it, like we already get charged for every minor piece added to the mother.

Motherboards already have all of the copper layers required for handling 150+A in the cramped CPU socket area where most of the highest-speed traces in the whole system also start from. The rest of the motherboard which has a much lower concentration of critical traces should have plenty of under-used copper for this without adding anything besides the extra connectors.

 

[TJ Hooker]

agree, while this might be fine for server backplanes, I don't trust consumer motherboards to do this properly especially not with existing ATX. If they want to make this work, they should redesign the ATX power connector. Its about time to be honest. multi rail 12V is all you need. can then have surface mount transformers for your to 5V and 3.3V on the motherboard. these are not used much these days as optical drives are gone, and harddrives are gone. only nvme now. Can make the CPU have its own multiphase power delivery section that takes from 12V instead of 3.3V. 5V is mostly for USB power, which can have its own dedicated surface mount transformer that takes from 12V.

You may not be aware, but a spec that does what you describe already exists: ATX12VO. It hasn't caught on much though, at least for retail parts.

Edit: CPU power already comes from a multiphase VRM fed from the 12V rail though.

 

[InvalidError]

You may not be aware, but a spec that does what you describe already exists: ATX12VO. It hasn't caught on much though, at least for retail parts.

Give it about five more years.

Between the likelihood of subsequent energy efficiency standards prompting a move to a higher bulk DC distribution voltage and the war on proprietary power adapters causing a rapid proliferation of external devices designed for 20V USB-PD, I wouldn't be surprised if 12VO got supplanted by 24VO or at least got an "ATX24V" extension to better accommodate 40+W USB-PD ports.

 

[purpleduggy]

i want all motherboards to have minimum 4x usb4 40Gbps usb c ports. high end asus/msi/gigabyte/asrock boards still only ship with maybe 2x 10Gbps usb3.2 usbc ports, and then they charge $400 for those outdated connections. thunderbolt/usb4 40Gbps should be standard. and then they should focus on eGPU development for 1000W GPUs over thunderbolt. This is the way forward. Internal cards are very DIY. if a user can upgrade their pc just by plugging in a thunderbolt box, they would sell more GPUs too with less technical confusion. i have an RX7900XT in a Razer Core X and it works incredibly well over thunderbolt.i can instantly turn my laptop into a beast with just one plug.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Motherboards already have all of the copper layers required for handling 150+A in the cramped CPU socket area where most of the highest-speed traces in the whole system also start from. The rest of the motherboard which has a much lower concentration of critical traces should have plenty of under-used copper for this without adding anything besides the extra connectors.

You keep saying that but you aren't accounting for noise and interference, not to mention the extra heat regardless of if the copper to support it.

Another downside of having everything on one "rail" the rail now being the MB, any one component, PSU, MB, CPU or GPU has the capability of shorting or destroying one or all of the components in one swoop.

 

[sitehostplus]

Awesome, but have they seen a Mini-ITX motherboard?

Bought one before and regretted it.

Trying to find graphics cards for that thing was an exercise in futility. If I ever buy one again, I need my head examined.

 

[tamalero]

Why don't 75+ watt GPUs simply come with an external power adapter that plugs into your wall, like a laptop power-brick? This should help the GPU makers expand their market to customers who want to upgrade old Optiplex or other branded mini tower PCs with a single-fan GPU that still needs over 75W.

at this point.. just buy an external enclosure.